Thursday, July 4, 2013

New Richmond flower farm helps family (and city) bloom

Inspired Cincinnati is The Enquirer's project on people who are working to make this a better place for all of us. They work in the arts, community service, their own businesses. They all believe you can create something new, exciting and fresh in Cincinnati.

Ed and Karen Wildey pull a selection of fresh flowers to create a bouquet at his Findlay Market stand. / The Enquirer/Liz Dufour

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This story is part of The Enquirer’s series about people who are working to make this a better place for all of us. They work in the arts, community service, their own businesses. They all believe you can create something exciting and fresh in Cincinnati. Know somebody creating things? Email John Faherty at jfaherty@enquirer.com.

Wildey
at Findlay

Wildey Flower Farm sells flowers every Saturday morning at Findlay Market. They are in place by 8 a.m.

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Over the past 11 years of growing and selling flowers, Ed Wildey has learned just about everything there is to know about the business.

He knows his customers at Findlay Market love bunches that straddle the fence between wild and structured.

He knows a strong and long stem is as important as the bloom. He knows flowers like to be picked in the morning and the evening, not in the afternoon. They will last longer when cut at those times. He is not sure why it is true, but it is.

He knows people expect their flowers to look beautiful for at least five days after bringing them home. (He also knows exactly what to put in the vase to keep them lovely longer. More later.)

But what Wildey knows most of all is that he made the right choice when he quit his job selling mutual funds and got into flowers. It helps him, his family and his home town.

“We love Cincinnati. We want to support it in our little way,” Wildey said. “I’m not a big mover and shaker, but we can make it a little better in our own little way. Cincinnati has soul, and we want to be a part of that.”

Wildey Flower Farm in New Richmond has rows of cultivated flowers, and it also has field after field of wildflowers that grow on their own. There are bugs and dogs and donkeys and chickens. The air buzzes. It smells alive.

The path to this farm was not straight for Wildey. It was more of a circle. He grew up on the 60 acres where his parents, Tom and Carol, grew tobacco, but he never felt compelled to get into the family business.

After college and few jobs, he settled into selling mutual funds. He did it for 10 years and never really loved it. Looking back, he says, he never really even liked it.

Rainy days plant seed for new family business

In the summer of 2002, Wildey and his wife, Karen, and the first of their two daughters were on a family vacation in Florida. It rained for five straight days.

“We went to a Publix grocery store and bought every magazine on the rack,” Wildey said. “There was an article about a guy who sold cut flowers at farmers markets. My first thought was, ‘We can do that.’ ”

The thought stayed with Karen and Ed for the rest of their vacation. They knew Ed’s parents were thinking of getting out of the tobacco business. The work was too much, and the government was offering incentives to get people to stop growing the plant.

“We came home, it was the last day of June, and we planted zinnias and sunflowers that day,” Wildey said. Then they called Findlay Market and asked if they could sell flowers there in the fall. The market said yes.

At first, both Karen and Ed did the flowers as their full-time jobs. Now Karen works at Christ Hospital for a regular paycheck and health benefits for the couple and children, Lillian, 11 and Rosemary, 6.

The following year, 2003, Wildey’s parents got out of tobacco, which freed up land and equipment. That made the flower business a lot easier. “To buy the land and start from scratch, and then to buy or lease the equipment?” Wildey said. “No way, you could not do it.”

Brides really can walk through field to pick flowers

His mother, Carol, sells flowers, too, supplying a handful of weddings each year. It feels better, she said, to grow flowers than it did to grow tobacco. “Oh, definitely,” Carol said. “None of us are smokers.”

Carol said her customers, always brides, often tell her that they want to look like they “just took a walk through the fields and picked flowers.” Carol does this by having them come out to the farm and actually walk through the fields to pick flowers.

The main business, though, is at Wildey Flower Farm’s booth at Findlay Market on Saturday mornings. People line up to buy local flowers that contain no pesticides.

“I use a lot of rotten cow manure,” Wildey said, proudly but quickly, “but we don’t have to write too much about that.”

Sometimes in the fall and spring, Wildey works as a substitute teacher. But every year the business is growing into more of a year-round venture. Wildey grows red-twig dogwood to make into Christmas wreaths. This year he is growing curly twig willows, which will come up in early spring, the last hole in his growing calendar. He stops on his farm and points to one growing wildly.

“I just stuck that in the ground and look at it,” Wildey said. “People love it. That’s the future right there; that will get us to year round.”

On Thursday evening, Ed, Lillian and Rosemary start cutting flowers. That, he says, is the best part of the business: spending time with his daughters.

Last weekend, they brought 30 buckets down to Findlay Market. The family fills the buckets with a mixture of water and lemon-lime soda. The acid from the soda kills bacteria, he says, and the carbonation pushes the water up into the stems. The flowers were all gone by 1 in the afternoon.

“People are as happy to buy these flowers,” Wildey said, “as we are to sell them.” ⬛

I will write about absolutely anything ... so long as it is interesting. Reach me at jfaherty@enquirer.com.